Monster Hunter Freedom Unite Players…Unite!

For the better part of a year, Japanese PlayStation 3 owners have been enjoying an amazing service on their PS3s, called adhocParty. As of this afternoon, all of us PSPers here in North America will finally be able to jump on the adhocParty bandwagon as well. This news is especially exciting for Capcom, as it means that Monster Hunter Freedom Unite players will now be able to connect with each other without having to be hanging out in the same room.

What is adhocParty? Smarter people than me can tell you all about the service right here.

You’ve probably heard stories about the unbelievable Monster Hunter juggernaut in Japan, and how it’s reached the point that one in every five Japanese PSP owners are playing the game. Capcom has sold millions and millions of copies of the three PSP titles in Japan to date, and Monster Hunter 2G (which we confusingly call Monster Hunter Freedom Unite in North America and Europe) was one of Capcom’s biggest game launches in recent history. Monster Hunter Freedom Unite is available digitally on the PSN, which is perfect for those of you who have just picked up the amazing pocket-perfect PSPGo or for those of you (like me) who are too lazy to get off the couch and hike down to the local video game retailer.

Personally, I’m a recent MonHun convert – in the last few months, it’s sucked me in like no handheld game I’ve ever played. My dedication to the game is comparable to the reaction I had to EverQuest and World of Warcraft: I just can’t get enough. A group of Capcom staffers have been happily hunting away since the release of the game, and we’re now all over 100 hours in on our characters, with the group in the Hunter Rank 8 and 9.

The best part of Monster Hunter is, of course, playing with other people. The secret sauce to MHFU’s uber-compelling gameplay comes in coordinating a group of four hunters, each bristling with diverse weapons and equipment and slaying tricksy beasties that range from a meager 20’ tall Yian Kut Ku to the overwhelming monstrosity that is Fatalis, a dragon so big that you have to fire cannonballs at his face just to get his attention. Finding other hunters in public places in North America can be tough – it’s not as easy as in Japan, where gamers are constantly thrust together in trains and highly concentrated urban areas. Unless you have a group of buddies that you’re hunting with regularly, it’s hard to randomly stumble across other players on the bus or waiting in line to buy a burger. And as a recent convert to the ways of Monster Hunter, let me tell you that taking on the high level G-ranked quests on your lonesome is a daunting and potentially PSP-hurling activity.

With adhocParty, you can now quickly and easily find other hunters. Download the adhocParty service from PSN (it’s free!), connect your PSP with your PS3, load up your game on your PSP and either start a room on adhocParty or join one that’s already established. Within no time, you’ll be able to find a group of dedicated hunters willing to help you with your HR quests and suddenly that giant G-ranked Rathian isn’t so hard to deal with. You can connect several PSPs to a single PS3, so if you have 2 or 3 fellow hunters hanging out in your dorm room or at your house, while another friend is stranded at a distant location, you can all still play. Way to keep the band together!

Since adhocParty runs on your PS3, you’ll be able to communicate with your hunting party in various ways. Yell through your Bluetooth headset (which I’m sure everyone now has, thanks to Call of Duty), or type away the controller keyboard or on a separate keyboard – just make sure to type fast if you’ve got a wyven munching on your face. Running quests on Monster Hunter can be challenging, so instant communication through the adhocParty service makes those all-important key quests even easier to complete.

Over on our own little community neighborhood – the seething and exciting world of Capcom-Unity.com – we organize regular online game sessions on Fridays afternoons. These Play Against Capcom Fridays have been heavy on the Street Fighter and Resident Evil matches over the last few months, but with adhocParty now live and legit, we’ll be hosting regular Monster Hunter Freedom Unite PAC events. Hell, with the amount of Monster Hunting done by myself (“Kramez”), Shawn “Snow” Baxter and Christian “Sven” Svensson, we’ll probably be running adhocParty sessions several times a week. Join up with our community and keep in touch and perhaps we’ll see you in the wild.

Did we mention that adhocParty is free? We’ll see you online this afternoon.

Yes, you will need to have your PS3 connected to a wire. If you\’ve got walls between your PS3 and your modem (like I do), there are several awesome wireless bridges that you can pick up for less than $80 that will convince your PS3 that it\’s hard wired while still rocking your wireless network.

I really hope that this will convince players to pick up Unite. It really is a great game. I personally beleive it’s the psp’s best. Amazing graphics, massive amount of content, and insanely challenging. The multiplayer is flawless. It doesn’t slow the game down one bit, and it is sometimes the only way to finish some quests in this game. Get it, you won’t be disappointed.

(And for people who complain about the camera or lack of lock on, you just suck at this game. Get over it :D)

This is great, but is it true that the PS3 has to be connected to the internet via WIRE and not WiFi in order for the Ad-Hoc party to work?
I asked the question in the other blog post but never received and answer.

After trying to get into Monster Hunter a few times, about a month ago, I connected with a few friends using the Japanese version of adhoc party and it was AWESOME! Works very slick, bluetooth communication, zero lag; NA PSP owners are in for a treat.

I’m so VERY stoked about this. I’ve been using the Japanese version for a while and I LOVE it, except for the part where I can’t read a frellin’ thing. Now that it’s in english, I’ll be on board and slayin’ with the rest of you. CAN’T WAIT!!

Well, I was excited for this, but if I have to have my PS3 hardwired to use this feature, I’m out of luck, And @19, that’s not technically the reason, because I use remote play to use the PS3 web browser on my PSP pretty often, and my PS3 is wireless.

This sucks if true (that I have to be hardwired), because it’s impossible for me to be hardwired, but I’m one of the biggest Monster Hunter fans. On PS2, between my 3 characters, I had 1600 hours just online before the servers got shut down. I SOOO miss hunting online with friends.

Capcom needs to stop pretending a simple port of Monster Hunter Tri is “too expensive” for them to handle, which was their lame excuse for cancelling MH3 on PS3 and putting it on Wii exclusively (dishonorable traitors, thanks for abandoning the whole fanbase). All we want is a port of Tri on PS3 with the classic PS2 MH controls. Make it happen Capcom. Monster Hunter will sell more on PS3 than on Wii regardless of install bases.

@17,18,19 I think is for the system to run smooth using the Ethernet interface as Internet conection while using the Wifi Promiscuous Mode to handle the PSP communications, and yes, it is possible to connect more than 1 PSP to one PS3 System, so you can have Yours and your friends PSP connected to your PS3 and play with (or against) two other friends across the Internet. I don’t know the max number of psp’s that can be connected at once, I pressume 3.

Ah, now, the game will actually be playable for me. The camera system really isn’t conducive to this type of gameplay, but having someone else nearby makes it a lot easier. Still, if the only time I can stand to play it is when I’m near my PS3, wouldn’t it just be better to have a PS3 version? (hint…hint) (HINT!!)